Best for the job

“Best for the job”, Monterey Herald – January 4, 2022

It’s still a mystery among many in the entertainment media why Cheslie Kryst, a former Miss USA winner and successful journalist, suddenly decided to leap from the ninth floor of her New York apartment. Maybe she was lonely and depressed about growing old, having heard so many popular myths about the negative side of turning 30. Why would someone so attractive and successful do such a crazy thing?

Most of her time seems to have been spent entering beauty contests and studying for a law career. She was one of three black women who all won beauty pageants in the same year, and one of the oldest Miss USA winners. Perhaps too much political correctness has entered the judging of beauty contests and pressure to choose winners based on racial quotas or, forgive me mentioning this, tokenism.

It is truly ironic that this happened only a few days after Biden had announced his plan to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court. Only two brain cells tell me we should always consider the best-qualified person to fill a crucial job in government or even a dishwasher at Denny’s. I believe a man named King once said this was judging people “by the content of our character, and not the color of our skin.”

Too often, race and gender are being considered first instead of not at all. After all, selecting a judge for the Supreme Court shouldn’t be like judging a beauty contest.

— Bill Graham, Salinas